Single Witness and Wife's Testimony

Yevamot (15:4) | Yisrael Bankier | 7 years ago

The Mishnah (15:4) teaches that an individual is able to testify on
their own that a women’s husband died abroad. The Mishnahteaches that
anyone as able to do so excluding five people that may have ulterior
motives. Ordinarily any matter that pertains to arayot (forbidden
relationships) requires two valid witnesses to affect a change in legal
status. We have already once discussed how in this case the Chachamim
made it possible to accept this testimony, since the alternative would
be that the wife is an a aguna.1 The earlier Mishnah (15:1)
however taught that even the wife is able to testify on her own,
provided that there were no grounds for suspicion. How do we understand
this law?

Ostensibly there are two possible understandings. The first way is that
accepting the wife’s testimony falls under the broader rule that we
accept single witness testimonies in this case. Even though there is a
conflict of interest for her (baal davar) - the result of the ruling
impacts on her directly – nonetheless we accept her testimony. This
might then have broader implications that in cases of edut isha even a
baal davar is believed. Alternatively, we might understand that
accepting the wife’s testimony in this case is a different law and
independent.

The Chelkat Yoav (Even HaEzer 29) explains that the reason why we
believe her is not because we accept single witness testimony. The
acceptance of the wife’s testimony was instituted prior to the time of
Beit Shamai and Beit Hillel as we learnt this week (15:2). We will
learn (16:7) that in the times of RabbanGamliel, much later, it was
instituted that we can accept single witness testimony in such cases.

Indeed the Yerushalmi (15:1) explains that even prior to the ruling
that single witness testimony is accepted, a wife would be believed if
she said her husband has died. The Yerushalmi explains that a single
witness might be suspected of falsely testifying to her detriment
whereas the wife is not.2 The difference therefore is that when it
comes to a single witness it is an issue of trust (ne’emanut) where as
the wife is trusted (at least in the first instance) based on a strong
presumption (chazaka).3

The ChelkatYoav strengthens this assertion that our accepting the
wife’s testimony is not because she falls into the broader category of
being a single witness. He cites the Re’em and the Radvaz who
explain that even if the wife was a robber (gazlan de’oraita) she is
still believed even though a robber is not believed in these cases
(edut isha). He also cites R’ Akiva Eiger who explains that even if
she had been in a prohibited marriage she would nonetheless be
believed.

1 Please see Volume 3, Issue 9, “Aguna with a twist of Teshuva”
for the different explanations of how the Chachamim were able to allow
her to remarry even though two witnesses should be required.

2 The Chelkat Yoav understands that the Yerushalmi implies that
after the later decree, she is believed for both reasons, for both
takanot. The Chelkat Yoav’s focus there is whether noge’ah
ba’davar applies to edut isha. That however is not the focus of this
article.

3 As it is explained in the Otzar Iyunim (Yevamot 89), Metivta
where the content of this article was gleaned. See there for much more
detail.